Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Genesis (Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit)
By: Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Craig Mundie
Narrated By: Niall Ferguson, Byron Wagner
NOTED BELOW: Henry Kissinger (former Secretary of State who died in 2023), Eric Schmidt (former CEO of Google), and Craig Mundie (a Senior Advisor to the CEO of Microsoft).
“Genesis” is these three authors view of the threat and benefits of artificial intelligence. Though Kissinger is near the end of his life when his contribution is made to the book, his co-authors acknowledge his prescient understanding of the A.I. revolution and what it means to world peace and prosperity.
On the one hand, A.I. threatens civilization; on the other it offers a lifeline that may rescue civilization from global warming, nuclear annihilation, and an uncertain future. To this book reviewer, A.I. is a tool in the hands of human beings that can turn human decisions for the good of humanity or to its opposite.
A.I. gathers all the information in the known world, answers questions, and offers predictions based on human information recorded in the world’s past. It is not thinking but simply recalling the past with clarity beyond human capability. A.I. compiles everything originally noted by human beings and collates that information to offer a basis for future decision. Information comprehensiveness is not an infallible guide to the future. The future is and always will be determined by humans, limited only by human judgement, decision, and action.
The danger of A.I. remains in the thinking and decisions of humans that have often been right, but sometimes horribly wrong. One does not have to look far to see our mistakes with war, discrimination, and inequality. In theory, A.I. will improve human decision making but good and bad decisions will always be made by humans, not by machines driven by Artificial Intelligence. A.I.’s threat lies in its use by humans, not by A.I.’s infallible recall and probabilistic analysis of the past. Our worry about A.I. is justified but only because it is a tool of fallible human beings.
Artificial intelligence is an amazing tool for understanding the past but its utility for the future is totally dependent on its use by human beings. A.I. may be a tool for planting the seeds of agriculture or operating the tools of industry but it does not think like a human being. The limits of A.I. are the limits of human thought and action.
The authors conclude the Genie cannot be put back in the bottle. A.I. is a danger but it is a humanly manageable danger that is a part of human life.
The risk is in who the decision maker is when A.I. correlates historical information with proposed action. The authors infer the risk is in human fallibility, not artificial intelligence.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 